Embodiments described herein relate generally to a database system and more particularly to methods and apparatus for implementing a database system across multiple devices in a network.
Some known distributed database systems attempt to achieve consensus for values within the distributed database systems (e.g., regarding the order in which transactions occur). For example, an online multiplayer game might have many computer servers that users can access to play the game. If two users attempt to pick up a specific item in the game at the same time, then it is important that the servers within the distributed database system eventually reach agreement on which of the two users picked up the item first.
Such distributed consensus can be handled by methods and/or processes such as the Paxos algorithm or its variants. Under such methods and/or processes, one server of the database system is set up as the “leader,” and the leader decides the order of events. Events (e.g., within multiplayer games) are forwarded to the leader, the leader chooses an ordering for the events, and the leader broadcasts that ordering to the other servers of the database system.
Such known approaches, however, use a server operated by a party (e.g., central management server) trusted by users of the database system (e.g., game players). Accordingly, a need exists for methods and apparatus for a distributed database system that does not require a leader or a trusted third party to operate the database system.
Other distributed databases are designed to have no leader, but are inefficient. For example, one such distributed database is based on a “block chain” data structure, which can achieve consensus. Such a system, however, can be limited to a small number of transactions per second total, for all of the participants put together (e.g., 7 transactions per second), which is insufficient for a large-scale game or for many traditional applications of databases. Accordingly, a need exists for a distributed database system that achieves consensus without a leader, and which is efficient.